Daily report from the Great Arab Revolt Project team dig in Jordan October/November 2007. Part of the Great War Archaeology Group.

Tuesday, 30 October 2007

Day 1 - orientation.

The remaining party arrived at Amman safely at around 10.30 pm local time on Monday evening. Unfortunately to a problem with the official paperwork two had to stay in Amman overnight waiting for clearance for flight cases of equipment, including the metal detectors. This resulted in the rest checking into the hotel at 4.00am local.

Undaunted the remainder had a late breakfast and, together with the advance party, met to discuss the project in broad terms and to allocate teams for different areas of the work and become aware of the health and safety issues associated with a project of this type in a Middle Eastern country.

We then boarded our transport and headed up to the first principal dig site at Ma’an, a journey of some 50 minutes from Petra.

Once there the new recruits and those visiting for the second time walked the various points of interest over the range of the site. During this Neil Faulkner, David Thorpe and others outlined the historical context of the features, their archaeological significance and the extent to which they had already been investigated plus the general plans for the development of the work.

Many thanks to the College of Archaeology at Al-Hussein Bin Talal University for their help in providing an internet connection to upload this blog.